The Keys to Getting Bigger, Stronger and Better at the Olympic Lifts Part 3 – Muscle Gain Challenge

In Part 1and Part 2 of this series, we shared some highly effective training and diet tips that will help you get bigger, stronger and better at the Olympic lifts. In Part 3, we tell you just what your program should look like if you want to maximize your chances of success.

A great training program is more than workouts. After all, that’s something you can find online for free and in great abundance anytime you want. In reality, it takes a lot more than a great map to find success in weightlifting.

The truth is that great programs include a lot more than just workouts.

If you are new to lifting, find a program that includes thorough explanations of every single workout. Ideally this would come from a coach, either live or via high-quality online videos. That level of engagement will allow you to learn and progress at a much faster rate.

Also, there should be no assumption that you already know how to warm-up properly, eat, and recover. Does your program account for your injuries and movement restrictions? I know you want to train like your favorite lifters, but are you prepared to make all the necessary sacrifices that would allow you to train for 3 hours a day, every day?

Another limitation of incomplete training programs is that there is no well-defined result or plan.

With little to no engagement how can your expect to reach your individual goals? Yes, it’s super important to work hard in the gym, but random workouts that don’t account for your skill level and fail to build upon each other are also not very effective.

We talked about the importance of creating clear goals, and then shaping your plan accordingly. But there is still a risk to consider – You should be very careful about the number of goals you take on at once.

It’s hard to stay focused in the gym. We all want to get bigger and better at everything, all of the time. But that’s not realistic. To get stronger and better at the Olympic lifts, progressive barbell training HAS to be your focus. Scale down the conditioning elements in your programming to make more room for strength gains.

Also, be very careful about mixing programming elements from different coaches and online sources. Getting bigger and stronger is an amazing way to improve performance in CrossFit® and Olympic Weightlifting. But that said, mixing and matching hypertrophy, lifting and gymnastics methods from several different programs is possibly the worst way to do it.

How can you reach YOUR goals when each part of your plan was written with a different purpose in mind? And more to the point, how can you possibly recover from the work of multiple strength programs?

There is one more element that ultimately determines whether or not you’re successful. That’s consistency.

You can have the worlds greatest plan, complete with unlimited coaching, hand-crafted programming, amazing community support, free food…You name the perk. But none of that matters at all if you cannot stick to your plan.

First of all, love the podcast and follow you guys religiously! My question to you guys about the Muscle Challenge is…

I’m a 49 year old with about two years of general (crossfit) fitness, 20 years of military fitness and a ton of cool guy extreme sports stuff like jumping, mountain biking, triathlons, climbing and mountaineering. I work at sea for 28 days and at home for 28 days. Will this 12 month program work for me? I have a garage gym and a gym (pretty crappy) on the ship. Ship food is pretty redneck, so a lot of fried stuff. I can still eat pretty heathy which should not be a huge problem. Internet is slow, but manageable with a lot of patience. So, what do ya guys think?

Love the cast and always reviewing techniquewod. Have been wanting to get down for a seminar or just to workout there in the near future.
Question is struggling on getting size now that my primary box is my garage and having limited workout times has left me to only doing oly lifts. My back squat has suffered due to a horrible makeshift rack I got for free but doesn’t extend to my height.
I was making huge gains at my box but relocating and having to buy my own equipment has left me at a standstill.
I have a barbell and roughly 600lbs or so. And that’s it for the moment. Hard to find a good plan I can use.